Smoldering hay makes more smoke than fire

No one hurt as firefighters hose down bales.

One minute the Southside Fire Department volunteer was in training. The next she was responding to a hay fire outside her home at Oakland Plantation.

More than 20 Southside firefighters worked the open-area field along Buckhalter Road off Ogeechee Road, where some 80 to 100 bales of hay sizzled around 4 p.m. White billows of smoke could be seen from Interstate 16.

Lt. John Frank busily directed the firefighters, who sprayed water on the blackening bales.

They filled and re-filled two of the department's water tankers. The Garden City Fire Department also used its 3,000-gallon tanker.

Frank hadn't started to investigate the cause of the fire, but said hay bales can generate heat if the centers are damp.

Mallard's husband, Tommy, the caretaker of the property, told her he had heard the sound of wheels pealing on the road next to the plantation.

"He drove up and it was engulfed," she said.

Tommy Mallard and Sandra Buckosh tried to put out the initial blaze by dousing flames with buckets of water.

"It wasn't that bad," Buckosh said. "Then all of a sudden it exploded."

Broward Hunter, a retired caretaker who lives near the property, worked with Tommy Mallard to move the bales.

Firefighters raked loose and hosed down the smoldering bales. Hunter pushed aside those that weren't burning. They will become chow for the cows, which were at a safe distance, he said.

Were they sweating it out?

"If they knew their feed was getting burned they would be," Hunter said.